Author: admin

A Reflection on past papers

In high school, I wrote whatever teachers told me to write about. While there was some creativity in there, that does not change the fact that it was written for a specific audience and had to be censored quite a bit. It felt awkward to talk about sexuality, oppression, and gender in my papers about dystopian novels. There was always a level of having to keep thoughts down because they were too outlandish to put in a paper.

In college, I have found that as long as I can prove my thesis, I can write about anything. Even if the topics can be uncomfortable, there is no limit to what I can write about. It has been the most freeing part of writing papers in college. I think it has made me a little bit more of a conspiracy theorist, but it has been so fun. Some of my favorite papers are from Shakespeare’s class because they pushed me to explore ancient texts and to find what makes them interesting to me. Other papers for classes like Gender and Sexuality have been extraordinarily fun to write because they forced me to confront so many of my own biases and write from other people’s perspectives. College papers have been the most fun to write because the answers are always in front of you, but you have to be smart enough to put the pieces together.

Gen-AI assignment

Honestly, I really loved that article, and it was a pretty good read. It reminded me a little of the Netflix Series, The Haunting of Hill House, when James said, “Women writers were particularly invested in the figure of the ghost as an apt metaphor for women’s ‘spectral’ existence in Victorian society, powerless and peripheral, but also idealized and morally elevated” (204). Nelly Vance, may you rest in peace. She was the Bent Neck lady from her younger self’s nightmares, and she was also the symbol of death when her husband died. When she dies, she realizes that she was the person who haunted her childhood. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in the whole world. It was a recurring symbol that no one in her life was really listening to her plight until it was too late.

On to the actual assignment, I used ChatGPT to summarize the paragraph here:

In “Menopause and Hysteria in Victorian Medical Texts and Rhoda Broughton’s ‘Mrs. Smith of Longmains’,” Louise Benson James examines how nineteenth-century medical discourse connected menopause with hysteria and female psychological instability, and how these ideas appear in literature. She explains that Victorian physicians often treated menopause as a dangerous “crisis” in a woman’s life, when changes in the reproductive system were believed to cause nervous disorders, emotional instability, or hysteria. James then analyzes how these medical assumptions are reflected in Rhoda Broughton’s short story Mrs. Smith of Longmains, whose middle-aged narrator experiences visions that might initially seem like symptoms of hysteria. However, the story ultimately reveals that the narrator’s visions are genuine rather than pathological. Through this twist, the text challenges Victorian medical authority and questions the tendency to pathologize women’s bodily experiences. James argues that Broughton’s story both reflects contemporary anxieties about menopause and subtly critiques the cultural and medical assumptions that labeled older women as irrational or unstable.

Was it good? Sure. Did it cover all the basics? Yes. Would I say that this beats out reading the article itself? No.

The thing about this summary is that I already read the article before being asked to run it through generative AI. Where I felt the summary was a little vague, I already had context for it. This is also a shortened summary of what it had given me. Some of the original blurb, which was about 2 pages longer, gave some information about what the author had written in the past. If I had not read the article, I would have assumed those pieces were in it, but they were not. Some of what the AI had given me was not at all what I had asked about. Other parts were pretty accurate, but when I played around a bit, I found that it would lie to me about what was in the article or correct itself when I found a mistake. Again, I would only catch it because I had already read the article.

Would I use it as a tool? I mean, it did a pretty good job on a one-paragraph summary, but other than that, probably not. It explained the concept pretty well, but it is hard to feel like I can trust it when it lies to me when I ask questions. Personally, I would maybe ask for a summary once before reading as a precursor, but otherwise, I don’t think AI is at the point where it can read and analyze academic work correctly.

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

The cancer talk wrecked me while I was reading it. From page 100 onward, I was hooked. The stark contrast between the sections, when the narrator is hit with the sentence, “Then you won’t be surprised to hear she’s got cancer?” to them talking about what gravity feels like, to the bare conversation that follows afterwards, broke me (Winterson 100). I remember when my great-aunt died of cancer, and the way that nothing feels real in that moment. The whole world fell silent in that moment, and seeing the narrator experience the same thing felt very realistic.

When the narrator returns to reality, the conversation is stripped of descriptors like “he said” and “she said,” and all the reader gets are the facts. It is like a very realistic description of dissociation while dealing with something hard, in the minute you are only focused on getting to the next moment vs trying not break down and scream. The narrator in the scene puts the reader at a distance, which feels very fitting as they now have to reevaluate their whole future, which is now going to look very different. The life they planned with Louise can not be the same. For the narrator, this diagnosis changes the whole world, and they do not invite the reader to watch the dreams fade. Instead, they choose to panic in private, yet the reader feels the grief at losing the future with them. They have to let go of Louise to save her, but letting her go also means sending her back to a life she does not want. To save her is to imprison her, but to free her is to doom life. An impossible choice, but one that is easy to see why the narrator chooses to leave.

Motherhood Readings

This week, we finished The Awakening by Kate Chopin, and I am livid. I can not believe it ended with her suicide. It genuinely made me so mad that she could not live any sort of meaningfully life because the people around her chose differently. She tried to make meaning through the people in her life, but because of who she is and what is expected of her, they let her down. They continuously ignored her bids for affection and attention, and in the end, she killed herself. I could not even finish the last couple of pages because I was so angry on her behalf. Edna, my darling, you deserved peace and happiness.

On to a not lighter note, the poems that we had to read for class were beautiful and sad. I put in one of my annotations Anna Akana’s short film about her experience with abortion. It is one of my favorite short films, warning for language. This video and Call the Midwife, were all I could think about during the reading. These poems today reminded me that motherhood is a precious thing.

You are bringing in a whole new life, and it should be done on your terms. The birthing process is one of the most traumatic experiences a body can go through, so it is only right that we, as a society, should support the people who choose to go through this. However, as we have seen with our current healthcare system, there is just not enough support to go around. Birth rates around the world have lowered, and is it any wonder why? Every single day, I turn on the news, and there is panic and pandemonium everywhere. I, myself, would dread bringing a child into this world. These women, less than a century ago, shared my concerns, yet while medical practices improved drastically, there is still a stigma about pregnancy and women’s health.

In these poems, women were talking about how they could not bring a child into this world. In “the mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks, she talks about the abortion and how sorry she feels for her unborn child. All I could think about was the fact that she felt she had to perform an abortion. Abortions are such a heavy topic today, but I have always been pro-choice. The women who decide to get them do it because something in their life prevents them from carrying the child to term. I can not fault them because I do not know their circumstances. Videos like Anna Akana’s show that not everyone is in the circumstances to have a baby. She talks about how she would love to be a mother, but not now, because she could barely afford to keep herself and her cats afloat. Shows like Call the Midwife also never look down on the women who get abortions. Despite being set in Britain from the 1950s to the 1970s, they are pretty progressive. They talk about how women who get abortions do so because they are scared, which puts them in unsafe situations. Women should always have access to safe abortions, whether you agree or not with the morality, because everyone deserves to feel safe in their own bodies.

The Awakening: by Kate Chopin Pt 2

Maybe because family relationships are always complicated, or because the first people we will ever meet in our lives are our parents, but Chapter 23 was hard for me to read. Edna’s father comes into the picture with a rigid posture and military sense. It makes sense to me that Edna’s main conflict comes from the suppression of her feelings.

When her children come, Chopin states, “He resented the intrusion of the children, who gaped with wondering eyes at him, sitting so stiff up there in their mother’s bright atelier” (p 176-177). Those are his grandchildren. When I think of most modern grandparents, I think of spoiling and laughter. Yet, we are with the Colonel, never addressed in terms of familiarity or love, and it is clear this man only really cares about respect and image. To imagine little Edna running around as a child, I can picture that she never received much attention from him, unless it was because of something she did wrong.

It is present in the way she is anxiously waiting for his approval in this chapter. She tries to impress him through her friends, her home, and her life. Is it enough? Maybe, maybe not, but, “for the first time in her life she felt as if she were thoroughly acquainted with him. He kept her busy serving him and ministering to his wants” (p 179). Even when she feels the connection she desires, it is at the expense of her time. She might feel connected, but in no way does her father actually appreciate her as a person.

I know that during this period, children are expected to be silent and obedient to their parents. For children of elite families, they got love and affection normally from an outside source, like a governess, but at the end of the day, nothing stops the primal yearning of family. There are so many studies of how children are impacted by the parenting that they receive, that for Edna to repeatedly be taught to suppress herself, I am not surprised by her little rebellions in the book. A cage works best when the animal does not realize there is a cage, but Edna is becoming more aware of herself. She is learning the limits and starting to try find her way around. This fact makes me so excited for her. I wish for her to get a happy ending with Robert, but I know that, deep down, this will only be a tragedy. Edna’s awakening will not end happily, but that is the point.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

I have to remind myself that feminism is a more recent concept. The beginning of this book has never made me hate a character faster. In chapter four, we see Mr. Pontellier describe how he views his wife. It is remarkably clear how he expects her to do a lot of emotional labor for her children and be like other mothers. He talks about how the children do not run to her when they get hurt, but they just get up and continue playing. I get angry because your children are just showing that they are growing independent. They are not looking for an adult to fix their problems, but rather, they are learning how to fix them themselves. A lot of people want their children to grow up independent, but Mr. Pontellier makes their growing independence the fault of their mother. It makes me angry when he says,

“Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The mother-women seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle… They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husband, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels” (Page 19).

If you choose to marry someone, then the answer is you choose them as a partner in life. If you wanted someone willing to do everything he described, there is someone out there for him. However, he chose a woman outside of his culture with different ideals and values from his. He wants to be upset that she does not conform to his ideals, but then why didn’t he choose someone from his culture? If you want compatible lifestyles, why choose someone who does not value the same things?

His attitude reminds me of men in today’s culture who say they don’t want to marry a feminist or that they want a traditional wife. Yet, they will be the first people to date an independent woman and try to bring her down. These are the men to say that they want a woman to stay home, but are also not willing to provide enough for her to stay home to cook and clean for them. I linked a video where we can see a man undermine the emotional labor of the woman and completely degrade her into a cleaning service, but she fights him back, saying that she brings value to the relationship besides that. Men like Mr. Pontellier like the idea of an independent woman, but when they actually have one, they realize that they wanted a woman they could mold.

Tomboy by Liz Prince

This was my favorite out of the two assigned readings. It was a little quirky and very cute. I especially love the scene where she “time-travels” in a phone box to tell a little girl not to co-opt her identity. It was a cute reference to Doctor Who. I would actually love to read the whole book now because the art style was amazing, and I like the way Prince tells her story.

The scene that really caught my attention is on page 61. When Prince says, “Let’s take the time to review some of the reasons you can be made fun of in grade…” and then proceeds to list every reason from wearing the wrong clothes to breathing wrong. The main point was that, as a girl, you cannot do anything right. She is right. While she and I have very different experiences growing up, she was constantly told throughout her childhood that the way she was performing gender was wrong. From her schoolmates to strangers, there was always some form of judgment that she was not “being a girl” right. When I was growing up, I was very much a girly girl, but even I could not escape the idea that I was not acting girly enough. If I burped too loudly or my room was too messy, I was told that it was boy behavior. In this 6-panel little box, I found myself nodding along to every reason she talked about. Even though these are little children making these judgements against peers, we need to remember that this behavior is taught young. These kids who are bullying others are learning to judge what is right, wrong, or abnormal from the society around them. It can come from their parents, their extended families, or even the tv shows they watch. However, it will be they who reinforce those beliefs onto their peers. Some people grow out of this behavior, but others do not.

I recently watched a YouTube Video talking about the TV show Bluey and its ripoff. I love the show Bluey, and the lessons its teaches kids. I have watched with my preschoolers, and I can see that it teaches nothing but acceptance. However, this ripoff teaches lessons that feel little counterintuitive. There are things that we teach our young children to do because we want to show them wrong from right in this world. However, sometimes we need a little reminder that these children will grow up and be adults. We want them to be adults who are open minded and accepting which means we need to show them by example. We need to examine our own biases and prejudices and make changes to be better.

Girl, Woman, Other. by Bernardine Evaristo

That was a whirlwind of the last two chapters. However, I would love to start out by saying how much I love how much Yazz’s parents love her. The idea that we start with Amma talking about how much of a revolutionary she is, but how, despite all of that, her life goals changed when she had her daughter. She was still a radical feminist, but watching her struggle with those ideals and protecting her daughter made me think of how scared I would be if I brought a daughter into this world.

Yet to bookend the book with Roland’s perspective was beautiful to me. I love that he said, “Yazz is the reason he got his act together, his life is divided into the Before Yazz and After Yazz eras” (Evaristo 413). There is something about parenthood that changes most people. I love that he talked about wanting more for her and striving to be the best parent he could be for her.

As someone who grew up with cultural differences from her parents, I love this perspective from the parents themselves. Yazz might be embarrassed or sometimes disagree with them, but there is no doubt that they love her. They might not be the best parents, but in both of their sections, we get the idea that she was a fundamental change in their lives. There was always this want to be either be better or make the world better. It is especially impactful because when I think of black parents in media, I think of the saddest stories growing up. I remember there is a running joke about “He went out for milk and never came back,” but it is not really present in Yazz’s section. They might not understand her, but it feels like a loving family. There is family, even if it is unconventional. I think we have seen a recent shift in media, where young black children are present with whole families. I think of shows like Blackish and The Neighborhood. There is a positive shift in Black media where we get people of color, especially African Americans, in positions of power or just general happiness. When I was younger, they were normally put in bad positions where they required a white savior. But now they are saving themselves and loving themselves in families of their own.

My name is Allyson Chloe. According to one of my professors, I am part of a dying breed, an English major. Why would I want to study English with the advent of AI? Simple, I love learning, and I love reading. I tried other majors, but nothing ever felt as right as learning about how people express their ideas through language and how language dictates what ideas a society is capable of. It has been such a thought-provoking learning experience that I am excited to continue my education and pursue a Master’s in Library Science. One day, I either hope to be part of those preserving the knowledge of the past, or I’ll be that old, friendly librarian who always has a lolly in her pocket. Either way, I want to be someone who will pass on knowledge to the future.

What do I hope to get out of Senior Seminar? Honestly, I just want to learn. I came into the class with no expectations, except that I would be writing a paper. I had no idea what our course of study would be about, but after reviewing the syllabus, I am excited about the discussions on how literature views women and their bodies. I love learning and talking with my peers because part of what makes this major fun is that you are not alone. You cannot think in a bubble; you will never grow. I am excited to see what everyone will research for their papers. I am also very excited to write a paper that I hope I can get published, but that is a future dream.